I've been in purging mode lately: cutting my hair shorter, getting rid of clothes, shoes and accessories that I no longer wear or care for, and even cutting out some friendships that I felt were not doing my soul good. I declared just after the new year that instead of making resolutions that I'd pick a word of the year, which ended up being "risk". And so, in the interest of purging and of risk, I've decided to close down and call it a day.
Questioning fat bias is something that I'll always be interested in and working towards, but it's no longer something that I wish to write about on a regular basis. (Well, I always had the best intentions to write on a regular, at least weekly, basis. That counts, right??) I also have quibbles with the fat acceptance movement that have been percolating in the background for awhile now, sometimes alluded to or noted in past posts. In general I'm a skeptical and critical person when it comes to groups based on an ideology, and this is no exception. For instance, Health At Every Size (HAES) is something I believe in, but you won't find me signing a pledge.
My own journey of body acceptance has been riddled with peaks and valleys, potholes and unexpected slippery surfaces. In order to continue, I need to purge the idea that losing weight is succumbing to the enemy, and I need to risk that I can find my way without writing long blog posts to no one in particular in cyberspace. It's time to turn inward and figure some shit out on the pages of my own journal.
To anyone out there who has regularly visited (Ranthropologist in particular), thank you for taking the time to surf here and read my thoughts on the topic of fat!
XOXO,
Zaftig Chick
14 April 2014
17 December 2013
Body acceptance?
I had a moment of clarity this morning in the shower, which is where and when I have most of my moments of clarity. I was standing there thinking how much I hated the way I looked in some of the pictures from our family holiday photo shoot, and then I thought of a headline I saw yesterday about how If Jennifer Lawrence Needs This Much Airbrushing, We're All Doomed and I also thought of this video about Advertising's Image of Women that my friend posted on Facebook, and then I thought of another Facebook friend, an acquaintance really, who has a similar body shape to mine and how she wears her lumps and rolls loud and proud in all the pictures she posts.
I shook my head at this acquaintance, how even for her wedding day - her wedding day! - she didn't wear a proper bra or support garment under her wedding dress. "She could have been so pretty," I found myself thinking. Her makeup and hair were done so beautifully, and it was all ruined by a too-tight wedding dress that highlighted her sagging breasts and lumpy midsection! Good lord, can she please go get a bra fitting? Like, today??
But, wait... I thought I believed in body acceptance? My judgement of my acquaintance is really a reflection of how I feel about myself and has little to nothing to do with her. On a logical level I feel that what she does with her breasts, her body, her wedding dress, whatever, is totally and completely her choice and that I, as someone who believes in body acceptance, respect that. On an emotional level, however, it all goes to pot (because it's really about me).
I always like and really appreciate when I see things like the above-referenced headline and video cross my desktop, because it makes me feel like there's some measure of truth about body realness out there. It's only a partial truth, though, and that's what my moment in the shower was about. We talk about media's fucked up portrayl of women's bodies but I'm not sure we talk enough about the full impact it has on us on a daily basis, outside of looking at a screen or page. We can look at a magazine cover of Jennifer Lawrence and logically we know it's Photoshopped but what about the emotions we experience the next morning, when there's no magazine around, and we strip down for a shower and catch a glimpse of body in the mirror? I've railed against the Yahoo! Shine channel plenty before today so I won't revisit the issue but suffice to say, I'm not surprised they would come up with a headline insinuating that we're all doomed because our bodies aren't as thin and perfect as Jennifer Lawrence's even before she was Photoshopped.
Today in the shower I confronted an idea that had gotten completely lost or maybe was never there to begin with. What about really and truly making peace with my body exactly as it is right now? What if I stayed this exact same way for the rest of my life? What if every single picture taken of the back of me were like the ones the photographer took of me holding my son's hand, leading him down a garden path: with my bra band riding ridiculously high on my back and digging into my back fat as it wraps around under my arms, and with a muffin top over the waist of my pants, and with a huge, flat, wide butt? I think I assumed that the way I look is only temporary, that tomorrow is when I'll start losing weight (or continue to lose weight) and be on the path to what my "real" size and shape is.
Not to be shunted aside is the feeling that I'll die an early death and miss watching my son grow up if I don't immediately start losing weight to get to this mythical size and shape. It's a very conflicting feeling because my sister did die what was more or less an "early" death due to health conditions rooted in obesity. And, if I'm going to be more honest than I really care to be, the thing the photographer captured about my face that I hate so much is that my eyes look like my sister's. They're crinkled up into squinting because I'm smiling so big and crazy trying to make my son smile big and crazy for the camera. I don't want to look like my sister because I remember my judgmental thoughts of her big body and how I vowed to never look that way. Mostly, I don't want to look like my sister because I don't want to die like my sister did.
But... I also don't want to care what I look like from the back when I'm holding my son's hand, leading him down a garden path because I'd rather just be in the moment feeling his little hand in mine. I don't want to care that my eyes look my sister's when I smile unabashedly because I'd rather just be in the moment feeling happy. Body acceptance folks advocate for "the moment" rather than chasing a mythical size or shape, but sometimes to the exclusion of possible health concerns. That's why I'm not quite sure if I can wholly buy into the notion of total body acceptance.
I shook my head at this acquaintance, how even for her wedding day - her wedding day! - she didn't wear a proper bra or support garment under her wedding dress. "She could have been so pretty," I found myself thinking. Her makeup and hair were done so beautifully, and it was all ruined by a too-tight wedding dress that highlighted her sagging breasts and lumpy midsection! Good lord, can she please go get a bra fitting? Like, today??
But, wait... I thought I believed in body acceptance? My judgement of my acquaintance is really a reflection of how I feel about myself and has little to nothing to do with her. On a logical level I feel that what she does with her breasts, her body, her wedding dress, whatever, is totally and completely her choice and that I, as someone who believes in body acceptance, respect that. On an emotional level, however, it all goes to pot (because it's really about me).
I always like and really appreciate when I see things like the above-referenced headline and video cross my desktop, because it makes me feel like there's some measure of truth about body realness out there. It's only a partial truth, though, and that's what my moment in the shower was about. We talk about media's fucked up portrayl of women's bodies but I'm not sure we talk enough about the full impact it has on us on a daily basis, outside of looking at a screen or page. We can look at a magazine cover of Jennifer Lawrence and logically we know it's Photoshopped but what about the emotions we experience the next morning, when there's no magazine around, and we strip down for a shower and catch a glimpse of body in the mirror? I've railed against the Yahoo! Shine channel plenty before today so I won't revisit the issue but suffice to say, I'm not surprised they would come up with a headline insinuating that we're all doomed because our bodies aren't as thin and perfect as Jennifer Lawrence's even before she was Photoshopped.
Today in the shower I confronted an idea that had gotten completely lost or maybe was never there to begin with. What about really and truly making peace with my body exactly as it is right now? What if I stayed this exact same way for the rest of my life? What if every single picture taken of the back of me were like the ones the photographer took of me holding my son's hand, leading him down a garden path: with my bra band riding ridiculously high on my back and digging into my back fat as it wraps around under my arms, and with a muffin top over the waist of my pants, and with a huge, flat, wide butt? I think I assumed that the way I look is only temporary, that tomorrow is when I'll start losing weight (or continue to lose weight) and be on the path to what my "real" size and shape is.
Not to be shunted aside is the feeling that I'll die an early death and miss watching my son grow up if I don't immediately start losing weight to get to this mythical size and shape. It's a very conflicting feeling because my sister did die what was more or less an "early" death due to health conditions rooted in obesity. And, if I'm going to be more honest than I really care to be, the thing the photographer captured about my face that I hate so much is that my eyes look like my sister's. They're crinkled up into squinting because I'm smiling so big and crazy trying to make my son smile big and crazy for the camera. I don't want to look like my sister because I remember my judgmental thoughts of her big body and how I vowed to never look that way. Mostly, I don't want to look like my sister because I don't want to die like my sister did.
But... I also don't want to care what I look like from the back when I'm holding my son's hand, leading him down a garden path because I'd rather just be in the moment feeling his little hand in mine. I don't want to care that my eyes look my sister's when I smile unabashedly because I'd rather just be in the moment feeling happy. Body acceptance folks advocate for "the moment" rather than chasing a mythical size or shape, but sometimes to the exclusion of possible health concerns. That's why I'm not quite sure if I can wholly buy into the notion of total body acceptance.
26 November 2013
Food dramas
I've likely mentioned before that for work I do event coordination for a non-profit. 'Tis the season for catered events, and therefore 'tis the season for all the crazy about food to surface. The folks who give me direction about what they want ordered for each event each have their own requests (demands) because of their own food preferences.
Have the caterer bring Diet Coke only! No one drinks regular soda anymore!
Chocolate chip cookies only for dessert! No one likes lemon bars or baklava!
The vegetarians can eat salad and rice pilaf! Meat protein is the most important item at the table!
And yes, I find the last sentiment particularly galling because I'm a vegetarian and somehow us veggies always manage to get stuck with the salad (generally of the fancy cheese and toasted nut variety and therefore, thankfully, good), the rice pilaf (ok, sure), and the limp-dick sauteed-to-death vegetable medley (sigh). At least we get a Diet Coke and a chocolate chip cookie out of the deal, eh?
It's all fun and yummy-in-my-tummy until the food runs out at an event. I've endured what I lovingly refer to as Catering Drama!!!! four event days in a row because we didn't order enough food for how many guests actually showed up.
The number of people who RSVP: 28
The number of people I order catering for: 35
The number of people the caterer actually provides for: 40
The number of people who attend: 63
Gulp. Catering Drama!!!!
Make no mistake. The people who didn't bother to RSVP and who show up 45 minutes late to an event with a clearly stated start time due to keynote speaker or other program are always the ones who are the most indignant about how there's no more food left. "Shame on you," they say. "You should always make sure there's enough food for your guests."
*********
I made friends with a couple of new moms of boys when I was a new mom myself, and we've hung out a couple times a month with our little ones in the almost two years since. At a certain point, I started noticing that whatever snacks I brought for Oliver were not allowed to cross the lips of the other boys. I wondered why and even felt hurt by my friends' decisions to not let their boys eat what I'd deemed worthy and healthy for my own son. I thought, Do they think I'm white trash? Because these sweet potato and cinnamon crackers are gluten free, they're from Whole Foods, and they cost upwards of $6 a box! It's not like I'm feeding him some Nabisco bullshit, sheesh.
After my wound healed over a little, I found some clarity. Food is a classist issue in my world. In the 1980's when "generic" was the big deal, I was embarrassed to be seen with my mom in the grocery store, picking out generic canned cream of celery soup for whatever that week's casserole was going to be and generic beer for my dad to drink after mowing the lawn on a hot day. Surely the rich, popular girls at school had moms who picked branded versions of canned soup and beer. My parents had no sympathy for me when I pointed this out. They viewed, and still view, anyone who spends more money on food than they "need" to as privileged and fancy (not in a good way). My husband and I, and my sister and her husband, all have "fancy" taste in food. We buy organic produce, and prefer to use olive oil or butter to cook with rather than margarine, and, worst of all, not a one of us spoiled brats will eat Jello for dessert. We all prefer dark chocolate... fair trade, 55%+ cacao, small batch, made in the Bay Area, Portland, Seattle or Brooklyn, $4 a bar dark chocolate.
I always wanted to ask my mommy friends why they wouldn't let their kids partake of our food, but I could never find a way to ask in a neutral, not-defensive, way. One day we were all at the park, Oliver was munching on hand-cut sticks of (organic, locally produced, purchased from vegetarian co-op) cheddar cheese when one of the other boys came up while my attention was diverted away from the container I was holding. When I realized the little hands having a cheese free-for-all didn't belong to Oliver, I called over to my friend, the boy's mother, and asked her if it was okay for him to have the cheese. "Oliver and I don't mind if he has some, as long as you don't mind," I said. She told her son to put the cheese back and I reiterated, "I seriously don't mind sharing. There's more here than Oliver will eat on his own." She replied, "Honestly, I don't want him to eat it because then he'll ask for it at home and I can't have cheese in the house because I love cheese and I'll eat it and next thing you know I'll have gained 10 pounds."
Incidentally, having overheard this exchange our other friend took this opportunity to chime in as well. She said, "Everyone tells me I'm a total control freak about what I will and won't let my kid have. My parents were super weird about food when I was growing up. Now as an adult I have food issues, too." I had gotten the answer to my unasked question in one fell swoop. The food drama wasn't really about me and my food. It is about them and their own experiences with food.
*********
Meanwhile, back at work... we are planning our annual holiday party, a luncheon at a popular Mediterranean restaurant. The restaurant has worked up a special menu for us consisting of all their greatest hits served family style. When my coworker sent the final menu out to our staff and queried whether we would like to also add a dessert course, it was met with a strangely reactionary, well, reaction.
That's already so much food!! Why would we need dessert as well??
As a frequenter of this particular restaurant, I think it will likely be an adequate amount of food but certainly nothing crazy. I felt like getting reactionary right back to the reactionary folks by telling them to pick the wad of panties out of their butt cracks and find something else to worry about, for fuck's sake. And, for what it's worth: YES, I would like dessert with my holiday meal, thank you very much.
It just brings home the point that everyone reacts from their own experiences with food and eating.
Have the caterer bring Diet Coke only! No one drinks regular soda anymore!
Chocolate chip cookies only for dessert! No one likes lemon bars or baklava!
The vegetarians can eat salad and rice pilaf! Meat protein is the most important item at the table!
And yes, I find the last sentiment particularly galling because I'm a vegetarian and somehow us veggies always manage to get stuck with the salad (generally of the fancy cheese and toasted nut variety and therefore, thankfully, good), the rice pilaf (ok, sure), and the limp-dick sauteed-to-death vegetable medley (sigh). At least we get a Diet Coke and a chocolate chip cookie out of the deal, eh?
It's all fun and yummy-in-my-tummy until the food runs out at an event. I've endured what I lovingly refer to as Catering Drama!!!! four event days in a row because we didn't order enough food for how many guests actually showed up.
The number of people who RSVP: 28
The number of people I order catering for: 35
The number of people the caterer actually provides for: 40
The number of people who attend: 63
Gulp. Catering Drama!!!!
Make no mistake. The people who didn't bother to RSVP and who show up 45 minutes late to an event with a clearly stated start time due to keynote speaker or other program are always the ones who are the most indignant about how there's no more food left. "Shame on you," they say. "You should always make sure there's enough food for your guests."
*********
I made friends with a couple of new moms of boys when I was a new mom myself, and we've hung out a couple times a month with our little ones in the almost two years since. At a certain point, I started noticing that whatever snacks I brought for Oliver were not allowed to cross the lips of the other boys. I wondered why and even felt hurt by my friends' decisions to not let their boys eat what I'd deemed worthy and healthy for my own son. I thought, Do they think I'm white trash? Because these sweet potato and cinnamon crackers are gluten free, they're from Whole Foods, and they cost upwards of $6 a box! It's not like I'm feeding him some Nabisco bullshit, sheesh.
After my wound healed over a little, I found some clarity. Food is a classist issue in my world. In the 1980's when "generic" was the big deal, I was embarrassed to be seen with my mom in the grocery store, picking out generic canned cream of celery soup for whatever that week's casserole was going to be and generic beer for my dad to drink after mowing the lawn on a hot day. Surely the rich, popular girls at school had moms who picked branded versions of canned soup and beer. My parents had no sympathy for me when I pointed this out. They viewed, and still view, anyone who spends more money on food than they "need" to as privileged and fancy (not in a good way). My husband and I, and my sister and her husband, all have "fancy" taste in food. We buy organic produce, and prefer to use olive oil or butter to cook with rather than margarine, and, worst of all, not a one of us spoiled brats will eat Jello for dessert. We all prefer dark chocolate... fair trade, 55%+ cacao, small batch, made in the Bay Area, Portland, Seattle or Brooklyn, $4 a bar dark chocolate.
I always wanted to ask my mommy friends why they wouldn't let their kids partake of our food, but I could never find a way to ask in a neutral, not-defensive, way. One day we were all at the park, Oliver was munching on hand-cut sticks of (organic, locally produced, purchased from vegetarian co-op) cheddar cheese when one of the other boys came up while my attention was diverted away from the container I was holding. When I realized the little hands having a cheese free-for-all didn't belong to Oliver, I called over to my friend, the boy's mother, and asked her if it was okay for him to have the cheese. "Oliver and I don't mind if he has some, as long as you don't mind," I said. She told her son to put the cheese back and I reiterated, "I seriously don't mind sharing. There's more here than Oliver will eat on his own." She replied, "Honestly, I don't want him to eat it because then he'll ask for it at home and I can't have cheese in the house because I love cheese and I'll eat it and next thing you know I'll have gained 10 pounds."
Incidentally, having overheard this exchange our other friend took this opportunity to chime in as well. She said, "Everyone tells me I'm a total control freak about what I will and won't let my kid have. My parents were super weird about food when I was growing up. Now as an adult I have food issues, too." I had gotten the answer to my unasked question in one fell swoop. The food drama wasn't really about me and my food. It is about them and their own experiences with food.
*********
Meanwhile, back at work... we are planning our annual holiday party, a luncheon at a popular Mediterranean restaurant. The restaurant has worked up a special menu for us consisting of all their greatest hits served family style. When my coworker sent the final menu out to our staff and queried whether we would like to also add a dessert course, it was met with a strangely reactionary, well, reaction.
That's already so much food!! Why would we need dessert as well??
As a frequenter of this particular restaurant, I think it will likely be an adequate amount of food but certainly nothing crazy. I felt like getting reactionary right back to the reactionary folks by telling them to pick the wad of panties out of their butt cracks and find something else to worry about, for fuck's sake. And, for what it's worth: YES, I would like dessert with my holiday meal, thank you very much.
It just brings home the point that everyone reacts from their own experiences with food and eating.
23 October 2013
I miss it
I miss it: being less zaftig. I was just looking at pictures from the first month of my son's life and was shocked at the size of my body and the thinness of my face. I think that I looked better or prettier than I do now but that feels like a fucked up thing to think, and also deeply ironic given how sleep deprived and on the verge I was at that time in my life. The fact of the matter is that I shed almost 30 pounds in two weeks time because I was the most stressed out I've ever been. I largely didn't feed myself for the first month of Oliver's life. I was constantly tending to him in some way or another, and putting him down to feed myself was not an option a lot of the time, so Honey Bunny would spoon my breakfast, lunch, dinner, into my mouth for me. Nothing tasted good anyhow. I just didn't care about food.
Until... my friend Ivy sent us a box of See's Candy. She sent it to us in a bigger box which had several presents for Oliver. I saw the size and shape of the See's box amongst all the other gifts and knew what it was instantly. Ivy's homemade card, stuck to the top, read, "And a gift for the pooped parents!" I thought, Oh my god, she gets it. She gets that I'm tired. She knows what I'm going through. Thank you so so so much for understanding, Ivy! Most, if not all, of my other close friends had also expressed empathy for our newly sleepless plight but for whatever reason Ivy's message hit me in the heart. I remember putting the first piece of chocolate in my mouth and thinking that's what it must be like to come alive after having been dead. Becoming and being pregnant, giving birth, becoming a parent both physically and emotionally -- as wonderful and miraculous as it all was, as it is, it was also absolutely laden with grief. I've only realized that recently, and Oliver is almost two years old! Ivy's chocolate shocked me out of the most intense, immediate, part of the grief I was experiencing and woke a piece of me up. In that moment I remembered who I once was, before I had birthed a child: Oh yeah, I used to really enjoy food! Especially chocolate! I'm so glad to know that that part of me hasn't changed through all this...
I ate like a horse when I was pregnant, and I didn't make very healthy choices. Super burritos were actually the healthy menu item in the midst of daily Diet Cokes and bags of Cheetos. Again, Oliver is almost two years old, and I finally have the ability to reflect on that and wonder, What the hell was I thinking? I wish I had moderated my eating a bit but I also remember thinking at the time that I wasn't going to let the chance pass me by to eat whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, with almost no lasting consequences. I would roll my eyes at other pregnant ladies who lamented about not being able to exercise as much as they did before, and I especially eye-rolled the shit out of the one who whined about how she wanted to keep her super healthy diet of daily kale and tofu but really she just wanted a quesadilla. I wanted to say to her, Really? You're pregnant and you're going to feel bad about craving a quesadilla? You can't just have one and enjoy it? What's the worst that could happen?
My thought process now is more that I needed, that I need, to consider someone other than myself. I wish I had eaten better quality food for Oliver's sake while he was cooking in the womb. I'd like to be in better shape to keep up with him as he grows and gets more and more active. I'd like to be healthier so I can hopefully add to my longevity and see Oliver grow into his 20's and 30's at least. Oliver, after all, has older parents, one of whom has gout and hypothyroidism, and was also diagnosed pre-diabetic this year. This, ironically, is the merely "overweight" parent, not his "obese" parent.
All the while I have the ghost of Weight Loss Past following me around. Six months before I conceived Oliver, when I started losing weight and was actually enjoying getting more fit with the help of my personal trainer, I remember thinking it was a slippery slope. It was all so fun and new to me but I knew that once I stopped eating a calorie-restricted diet and/or stopped doing hardcore interval training that all the magic of seeing the number on the scale gradually going down down down, and feeling my clothes become loose on my body, and hearing people's compliments on my changing figure would come to a grinding halt. It's good, of course, that the reason it DID come to a grinding halt was because I got pregnant. Switching gears from losing weight and working out to gaining weight and not doing a damn thing for fitness for eight months was just the beginning of the sustained grieving process I mentioned above. I hated that I had to switch gears but... I had to.
My post-pregnancy body story is different than most other moms I know. Most moms I know gained a lot of weight and they've had to work, sometimes quite hard, to lose it. I'm unusual in that I didn't gain a whole lot during pregnancy, lost all of it and some change within two weeks of the birth, and since then I've gained all but about five pounds of it back. Ivy's chocolates indeed breathed color into my black and white postpartum existence, but it also unleashed a monster. Chocolate started fueling my happiness. I had Honey Bunny buy a couple large bars of organic, dark, sea salted, beautiful chocolate every week at the grocery store, and it would truly take a few days to nibble through each bar. Then when I was brave enough to venture out in the neighborhood on my own, Oliver in the stroller, I started stopping at the store for a big bar of chocolate every day. Then it turned into buying a pint of organic, whole fat, luscious ice cream each day. HB and I would have a bowl after dinner and then, why not, polish off what was left in the container after putting Oliver to bed. After several months of that, Honey Bunny was diagnosed pre-diabetic. He was plain with the doctor about our daily pint habit and she agreed that's probably what did it. When it was my turn for my annual physical with blood work, I waited for the same exact diagnosis to roll in, but... no. My cholesterol was on the high end of the normal spectrum but otherwise the lab results were good. Better than before Oliver was conceived, in fact. What the fuck? (Sidenote: my poor husband!)
I've been ready for awhile to start losing weight again and have attempted to do so with the two methods that worked so well for me before. Firstly, I went back to personal training as of last May. As I'm in a different financial place in my life now, I can't afford my previous trainer and so I'm seeing her much-nicer-and-not-so-hardcore apprentice. Clearly I'm also in a different physical or emotional place now because training just isn't as fun as I remember it being. I remember feeling high when I left the gym, turning the radio up really high and singing along unabashedly with the moon roof open while I drove home, not caring who could see or hear me, and talking a mile a minute to my husband when I got home, telling him how much I loved training. These days I get in my car afterwards and I feel accomplished and happy, but I also know what awaits me at home which is generally a cranky but wired, over-tired toddler who needs a bath and to be put to bed, and his cranky, over-tired Daddy. Training before I had a kid was awesome because I could just flop on the couch afterwards to eat my take-out dinner while watching TV and joke about how sore I already felt. Training after having a kid kind of sucks because there is no flopping on the couch when I get home, there is no take-out food because we theoretically can't afford it, and if I'm already sore by the time I go to bed then my tomorrow of chasing a toddler around is FUCKED.
The other thing I've attempted to do again is track my food intake, exercise and weight on My Plate at livestrong.com, a system that was paramount to my previous success. Tracking caloric intake was an eye-opening experience when I started doing it. I marveled at how many calories certain things had (things that I often thought of as "healthy" and therefore low in calories) and how few calories other things had (things that I thought of as "bad"). I also didn't realize just how many calories I was eating in a given day, versus what I "should" be eating to simply maintain my weight, until I started tracking them. It was like when eight year old me discovered Pac Man... I was hooked, and I wanted to win the game. I started eating within my caloric limit for the new goal of losing 0.5 pound per week. I remember thinking that it wasn't even hard to eat less because I was having fun trying to meet the challenge, trying to win the game. I lost more in the neighborhood of 1 pound per week which was inexplicable in the numbers game. Afterall, if anything, I could have been accused of obsessively over-tracking everything I ate, sometimes including crumbs. I'd log green tea, Diet Coke and sugarless gum despite the fact that there's not a calorie to be found among them. Again, allllll of that was fun to do when the hardest thing about my day was making sure my cats got their dinner by 7pm. Now that I have a kid, I find that I just, well, don't give a shit. I've got much bigger fish to fry than tracking that I just finished off the remainder of Oliver's string cheese when he was about to throw it out of the stroller onto the sidewalk. There's no way I can remember the name of the cereal I ate this morning because half the time I can't even remember that I HAD a bowl of cereal this morning. Life is different now and if I'm gonna go back to My Plate, it's going to require a Herculean effort to move it up the priority list.
In full disclosure, I also have abandoned my latest attempts at My Plate because I'm a sore loser. I don't like not winning at games. At some point, I thought it would be an interesting exercise to track what I ate just to see what I was eating and how many calories it was. "No judgement!" Yeah, right. If I'm 200 calories over what I'm "supposed" to be eating for the day, and dinner is still three hours away... I'm FUCKED.
So, where do I go from here? Most, if not all, of my life circumstances have changed. The things that made me successful - namely, resources and motivation - aren't working as they did before. Obviously I'm going to have to reexamine the plan to get from point A to point B, and that plan is going to have to include a LOT of flexibility. I hope to talk about it more, blog about it more, as I find my way because I know that helped to keep me both accountable and checked in my previous success.
On a last note, I realize that talking about weight loss, calorie restriction, etc, is verboten among those who identify as anti-fat bias. I realize that even embarking on a weight loss goal is a contradiction when, above all, what I truly want is to be around as long as I can for Oliver and that that can be achieved by simply putting effort into daily exercise and eating good things for the body. All I can say to that is, oh well. I'm a contradiction. I'm human and vain and, in addition to losing weight to theoretically help with overall health and longevity, I want to lose weight because it was fun and novel to watch my body get smaller and the pool of clothes and shoe possibilities get bigger. I also want to lose weight because I think my body felt better that way, or at least by virtue of getting more movement and/or less food than it currently gets. Not that I have much of a readership (thank you for reading, Shasta!) but in case anyone from the anti-bias community ends up here... my apologies if you're offended, if you think I'm the worst hypocrite you've ever laid eyes on, so on and so forth. Truly, best of wishes to you and your anti-bias work. (And no need to visit my site again, unless you've chosen to root for me.)
Until... my friend Ivy sent us a box of See's Candy. She sent it to us in a bigger box which had several presents for Oliver. I saw the size and shape of the See's box amongst all the other gifts and knew what it was instantly. Ivy's homemade card, stuck to the top, read, "And a gift for the pooped parents!" I thought, Oh my god, she gets it. She gets that I'm tired. She knows what I'm going through. Thank you so so so much for understanding, Ivy! Most, if not all, of my other close friends had also expressed empathy for our newly sleepless plight but for whatever reason Ivy's message hit me in the heart. I remember putting the first piece of chocolate in my mouth and thinking that's what it must be like to come alive after having been dead. Becoming and being pregnant, giving birth, becoming a parent both physically and emotionally -- as wonderful and miraculous as it all was, as it is, it was also absolutely laden with grief. I've only realized that recently, and Oliver is almost two years old! Ivy's chocolate shocked me out of the most intense, immediate, part of the grief I was experiencing and woke a piece of me up. In that moment I remembered who I once was, before I had birthed a child: Oh yeah, I used to really enjoy food! Especially chocolate! I'm so glad to know that that part of me hasn't changed through all this...
I ate like a horse when I was pregnant, and I didn't make very healthy choices. Super burritos were actually the healthy menu item in the midst of daily Diet Cokes and bags of Cheetos. Again, Oliver is almost two years old, and I finally have the ability to reflect on that and wonder, What the hell was I thinking? I wish I had moderated my eating a bit but I also remember thinking at the time that I wasn't going to let the chance pass me by to eat whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, with almost no lasting consequences. I would roll my eyes at other pregnant ladies who lamented about not being able to exercise as much as they did before, and I especially eye-rolled the shit out of the one who whined about how she wanted to keep her super healthy diet of daily kale and tofu but really she just wanted a quesadilla. I wanted to say to her, Really? You're pregnant and you're going to feel bad about craving a quesadilla? You can't just have one and enjoy it? What's the worst that could happen?
My thought process now is more that I needed, that I need, to consider someone other than myself. I wish I had eaten better quality food for Oliver's sake while he was cooking in the womb. I'd like to be in better shape to keep up with him as he grows and gets more and more active. I'd like to be healthier so I can hopefully add to my longevity and see Oliver grow into his 20's and 30's at least. Oliver, after all, has older parents, one of whom has gout and hypothyroidism, and was also diagnosed pre-diabetic this year. This, ironically, is the merely "overweight" parent, not his "obese" parent.
All the while I have the ghost of Weight Loss Past following me around. Six months before I conceived Oliver, when I started losing weight and was actually enjoying getting more fit with the help of my personal trainer, I remember thinking it was a slippery slope. It was all so fun and new to me but I knew that once I stopped eating a calorie-restricted diet and/or stopped doing hardcore interval training that all the magic of seeing the number on the scale gradually going down down down, and feeling my clothes become loose on my body, and hearing people's compliments on my changing figure would come to a grinding halt. It's good, of course, that the reason it DID come to a grinding halt was because I got pregnant. Switching gears from losing weight and working out to gaining weight and not doing a damn thing for fitness for eight months was just the beginning of the sustained grieving process I mentioned above. I hated that I had to switch gears but... I had to.
My post-pregnancy body story is different than most other moms I know. Most moms I know gained a lot of weight and they've had to work, sometimes quite hard, to lose it. I'm unusual in that I didn't gain a whole lot during pregnancy, lost all of it and some change within two weeks of the birth, and since then I've gained all but about five pounds of it back. Ivy's chocolates indeed breathed color into my black and white postpartum existence, but it also unleashed a monster. Chocolate started fueling my happiness. I had Honey Bunny buy a couple large bars of organic, dark, sea salted, beautiful chocolate every week at the grocery store, and it would truly take a few days to nibble through each bar. Then when I was brave enough to venture out in the neighborhood on my own, Oliver in the stroller, I started stopping at the store for a big bar of chocolate every day. Then it turned into buying a pint of organic, whole fat, luscious ice cream each day. HB and I would have a bowl after dinner and then, why not, polish off what was left in the container after putting Oliver to bed. After several months of that, Honey Bunny was diagnosed pre-diabetic. He was plain with the doctor about our daily pint habit and she agreed that's probably what did it. When it was my turn for my annual physical with blood work, I waited for the same exact diagnosis to roll in, but... no. My cholesterol was on the high end of the normal spectrum but otherwise the lab results were good. Better than before Oliver was conceived, in fact. What the fuck? (Sidenote: my poor husband!)
I've been ready for awhile to start losing weight again and have attempted to do so with the two methods that worked so well for me before. Firstly, I went back to personal training as of last May. As I'm in a different financial place in my life now, I can't afford my previous trainer and so I'm seeing her much-nicer-and-not-so-hardcore apprentice. Clearly I'm also in a different physical or emotional place now because training just isn't as fun as I remember it being. I remember feeling high when I left the gym, turning the radio up really high and singing along unabashedly with the moon roof open while I drove home, not caring who could see or hear me, and talking a mile a minute to my husband when I got home, telling him how much I loved training. These days I get in my car afterwards and I feel accomplished and happy, but I also know what awaits me at home which is generally a cranky but wired, over-tired toddler who needs a bath and to be put to bed, and his cranky, over-tired Daddy. Training before I had a kid was awesome because I could just flop on the couch afterwards to eat my take-out dinner while watching TV and joke about how sore I already felt. Training after having a kid kind of sucks because there is no flopping on the couch when I get home, there is no take-out food because we theoretically can't afford it, and if I'm already sore by the time I go to bed then my tomorrow of chasing a toddler around is FUCKED.
The other thing I've attempted to do again is track my food intake, exercise and weight on My Plate at livestrong.com, a system that was paramount to my previous success. Tracking caloric intake was an eye-opening experience when I started doing it. I marveled at how many calories certain things had (things that I often thought of as "healthy" and therefore low in calories) and how few calories other things had (things that I thought of as "bad"). I also didn't realize just how many calories I was eating in a given day, versus what I "should" be eating to simply maintain my weight, until I started tracking them. It was like when eight year old me discovered Pac Man... I was hooked, and I wanted to win the game. I started eating within my caloric limit for the new goal of losing 0.5 pound per week. I remember thinking that it wasn't even hard to eat less because I was having fun trying to meet the challenge, trying to win the game. I lost more in the neighborhood of 1 pound per week which was inexplicable in the numbers game. Afterall, if anything, I could have been accused of obsessively over-tracking everything I ate, sometimes including crumbs. I'd log green tea, Diet Coke and sugarless gum despite the fact that there's not a calorie to be found among them. Again, allllll of that was fun to do when the hardest thing about my day was making sure my cats got their dinner by 7pm. Now that I have a kid, I find that I just, well, don't give a shit. I've got much bigger fish to fry than tracking that I just finished off the remainder of Oliver's string cheese when he was about to throw it out of the stroller onto the sidewalk. There's no way I can remember the name of the cereal I ate this morning because half the time I can't even remember that I HAD a bowl of cereal this morning. Life is different now and if I'm gonna go back to My Plate, it's going to require a Herculean effort to move it up the priority list.
In full disclosure, I also have abandoned my latest attempts at My Plate because I'm a sore loser. I don't like not winning at games. At some point, I thought it would be an interesting exercise to track what I ate just to see what I was eating and how many calories it was. "No judgement!" Yeah, right. If I'm 200 calories over what I'm "supposed" to be eating for the day, and dinner is still three hours away... I'm FUCKED.
So, where do I go from here? Most, if not all, of my life circumstances have changed. The things that made me successful - namely, resources and motivation - aren't working as they did before. Obviously I'm going to have to reexamine the plan to get from point A to point B, and that plan is going to have to include a LOT of flexibility. I hope to talk about it more, blog about it more, as I find my way because I know that helped to keep me both accountable and checked in my previous success.
On a last note, I realize that talking about weight loss, calorie restriction, etc, is verboten among those who identify as anti-fat bias. I realize that even embarking on a weight loss goal is a contradiction when, above all, what I truly want is to be around as long as I can for Oliver and that that can be achieved by simply putting effort into daily exercise and eating good things for the body. All I can say to that is, oh well. I'm a contradiction. I'm human and vain and, in addition to losing weight to theoretically help with overall health and longevity, I want to lose weight because it was fun and novel to watch my body get smaller and the pool of clothes and shoe possibilities get bigger. I also want to lose weight because I think my body felt better that way, or at least by virtue of getting more movement and/or less food than it currently gets. Not that I have much of a readership (thank you for reading, Shasta!) but in case anyone from the anti-bias community ends up here... my apologies if you're offended, if you think I'm the worst hypocrite you've ever laid eyes on, so on and so forth. Truly, best of wishes to you and your anti-bias work. (And no need to visit my site again, unless you've chosen to root for me.)
24 September 2013
Fat-calling
I've had a few instances of what I call "fat-calling" in the past couple weeks. Fat-calling is like cat-calling only instead of being degraded for your mere hotness, you're being degraded because of being fat (and, presumably, ugly). Fat-calling always seems to be cyclical in my life. I can go for quite awhile without hearing so much as a peep and then all of a sudden the fat-calls pour in.
The last one, the most notable of them all, was last week as I was leaving work. I was dragging myself down the sidewalk in uncomfortable shoes, in uncomfortable clothes, after a very long day of sitting in front of a computer screen. I remember my back and hips feeling achy from sitting for so long. I remember thinking I was going to throw away my tired, scuffed up, too-stretched-out shoes when I got home (and I did). I remember thinking I hated what I was wearing, that I was going to put my ugly top in the Goodwill box when I got home (and I did). I was feeling ultra pissy because I couldn't believe I spent $60 on jeans that looked great in the mirror when I put them on at 7am but then stretched like bubble gum throughout the day, ending up looking like a baggy, shapeless, fucked up mess on my legs by 5pm.
And then, I spotted them: two guys in their mid-twenties standing on a balcony overlooking the street, where a minor car accident had just happened. They were watching the accident, I guessed, but I had a feeling they were going to fat-call when I walked by on the street below them.
(whisper whisper) (snickering)
Guy 1: Hey, gorgeous!
Guy 2: Owwww!
(more snickering) (sound of high five)
I chose not to say anything in return because that's technically the best defense in these situations. I've learned that if you say something back, it better be a bullseye or else you face even worse, more vicious fat-calling. Expect excessive snickering and high-fiving if you choose only to flip off, because they know they got to you. I guess that's the point of fat-calling... to get to you.
I got in my car afterwards and was stewing about it on the drive home. All of a sudden, I picture myself on the sidewalk again... "Hey, gorgeous!" I turn around and with a crazy, cartoonish happy look on my face I say, with a crazy, cartoonish and quite loud Elle Woods affect: "Oh my god, I think you're super cute too! I love the 50 extra pounds around your middle, sir, but most of all I love your friend's limp-dick ponytail! Have a nice night, byeeeeee!"
Only, I'd actually said (semi-yelled) this aloud in my car, with the moon roof open, at a stop light with many other cars and bicyclists and pedestrians too, while I was having my revenge ideation. Phew, embarrassing. And yes, I had totally profiled those dudes standing on the balcony as I was approaching them, having the gut feeling they would say something to me. I saw paunchy, stout Guy 1 standing there with a baseball cap backwards on his head (there is no surer sign of a fat-caller than the backwards baseball cap, trust me) and I saw tall Guy 2 with a long, scraggly ponytail next to him. They were no prizes themselves. They were also, I will admit, men of color.
I've been thinking over the past couple days about my potential bullseye response. Would I have been "brave" enough to actually deliver that retort with the volume and attitude required? In the vein of Two Wrongs Don't Make a Right, is it wrong to make fun of a fat-caller's fat when that's the very crime he has perpetrated on you?
I've also been thinking about how it felt to be fat-called in that particular situation. As opposed to the other calling I've gotten recently which have been variations on a theme (such as the "Oww!!" yelled from a moving car as I stand waiting on the edge of the crosswalk), this one rocked my world. It's the first time I've ever thought to myself afterwards, "Oh my god, I'm ugly." I actually think that's the normal, generalized feeling I always have after being fat-called, but I've never articulated it further and stayed with it. Naturally, I've always tried to push that thought away because it's so uncomfortable, so punishing.
I actually think in some ways that it was a good thought to stay with and feel. If you're always pushing away the uncomfortable feelings without further articulating why they are a problem for you, then it's an unresolved cycle. I'd honestly never thought through what it might mean to me to be "ugly". Fat is something I can live because I've more or less come to peace with it. Ugly is somehow far more damning than fat. Ugly is something you were born into, something you probably can't change much, and something that belies what's on the inside of you, what's in your soul.
And what a load of bullshit that is, huh? I needed to challenge my bias around "ugly" to realize how loaded that word, that notion, is. It's like what my old friend Teresa used to say about the word "weird":
Don't just call something "weird", because "weird" doesn't mean anything. "Weird" means a million things at once and yet nothing at all. Worse, "weird" is a derisive term people use to describe things they don't understand or relate to. It's the laziest word you could ever choose to use.
"Ugly" (and it's opposite, "pretty") is subjective. It's also something that gets thrown around a lot where fat people are concerned, which is a problem for me. Whether I'm ugly or not, especially to two random strangers, is here nor there in the grand scheme of things. I'm not ugly on the inside which is the most important thing of all. Those two young men saying that I'm ugly... that's pretty darn ugly, if you ask me. It's really fucked up to consciously set out to make someone feel as low as I felt in that moment and in its ensuing wake. That has always weighed heavily on my mind, having been bullied to the point of severe depression as a young person, and weighs all the more heavy on my mind now that I'm raising a child.
The last one, the most notable of them all, was last week as I was leaving work. I was dragging myself down the sidewalk in uncomfortable shoes, in uncomfortable clothes, after a very long day of sitting in front of a computer screen. I remember my back and hips feeling achy from sitting for so long. I remember thinking I was going to throw away my tired, scuffed up, too-stretched-out shoes when I got home (and I did). I remember thinking I hated what I was wearing, that I was going to put my ugly top in the Goodwill box when I got home (and I did). I was feeling ultra pissy because I couldn't believe I spent $60 on jeans that looked great in the mirror when I put them on at 7am but then stretched like bubble gum throughout the day, ending up looking like a baggy, shapeless, fucked up mess on my legs by 5pm.
And then, I spotted them: two guys in their mid-twenties standing on a balcony overlooking the street, where a minor car accident had just happened. They were watching the accident, I guessed, but I had a feeling they were going to fat-call when I walked by on the street below them.
(whisper whisper) (snickering)
Guy 1: Hey, gorgeous!
Guy 2: Owwww!
(more snickering) (sound of high five)
I chose not to say anything in return because that's technically the best defense in these situations. I've learned that if you say something back, it better be a bullseye or else you face even worse, more vicious fat-calling. Expect excessive snickering and high-fiving if you choose only to flip off, because they know they got to you. I guess that's the point of fat-calling... to get to you.
I got in my car afterwards and was stewing about it on the drive home. All of a sudden, I picture myself on the sidewalk again... "Hey, gorgeous!" I turn around and with a crazy, cartoonish happy look on my face I say, with a crazy, cartoonish and quite loud Elle Woods affect: "Oh my god, I think you're super cute too! I love the 50 extra pounds around your middle, sir, but most of all I love your friend's limp-dick ponytail! Have a nice night, byeeeeee!"
Only, I'd actually said (semi-yelled) this aloud in my car, with the moon roof open, at a stop light with many other cars and bicyclists and pedestrians too, while I was having my revenge ideation. Phew, embarrassing. And yes, I had totally profiled those dudes standing on the balcony as I was approaching them, having the gut feeling they would say something to me. I saw paunchy, stout Guy 1 standing there with a baseball cap backwards on his head (there is no surer sign of a fat-caller than the backwards baseball cap, trust me) and I saw tall Guy 2 with a long, scraggly ponytail next to him. They were no prizes themselves. They were also, I will admit, men of color.
I've been thinking over the past couple days about my potential bullseye response. Would I have been "brave" enough to actually deliver that retort with the volume and attitude required? In the vein of Two Wrongs Don't Make a Right, is it wrong to make fun of a fat-caller's fat when that's the very crime he has perpetrated on you?
I've also been thinking about how it felt to be fat-called in that particular situation. As opposed to the other calling I've gotten recently which have been variations on a theme (such as the "Oww!!" yelled from a moving car as I stand waiting on the edge of the crosswalk), this one rocked my world. It's the first time I've ever thought to myself afterwards, "Oh my god, I'm ugly." I actually think that's the normal, generalized feeling I always have after being fat-called, but I've never articulated it further and stayed with it. Naturally, I've always tried to push that thought away because it's so uncomfortable, so punishing.
I actually think in some ways that it was a good thought to stay with and feel. If you're always pushing away the uncomfortable feelings without further articulating why they are a problem for you, then it's an unresolved cycle. I'd honestly never thought through what it might mean to me to be "ugly". Fat is something I can live because I've more or less come to peace with it. Ugly is somehow far more damning than fat. Ugly is something you were born into, something you probably can't change much, and something that belies what's on the inside of you, what's in your soul.
And what a load of bullshit that is, huh? I needed to challenge my bias around "ugly" to realize how loaded that word, that notion, is. It's like what my old friend Teresa used to say about the word "weird":
Don't just call something "weird", because "weird" doesn't mean anything. "Weird" means a million things at once and yet nothing at all. Worse, "weird" is a derisive term people use to describe things they don't understand or relate to. It's the laziest word you could ever choose to use.
"Ugly" (and it's opposite, "pretty") is subjective. It's also something that gets thrown around a lot where fat people are concerned, which is a problem for me. Whether I'm ugly or not, especially to two random strangers, is here nor there in the grand scheme of things. I'm not ugly on the inside which is the most important thing of all. Those two young men saying that I'm ugly... that's pretty darn ugly, if you ask me. It's really fucked up to consciously set out to make someone feel as low as I felt in that moment and in its ensuing wake. That has always weighed heavily on my mind, having been bullied to the point of severe depression as a young person, and weighs all the more heavy on my mind now that I'm raising a child.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)